Therapeutic Foster Homes Essential

September 16, 2002

Florida has abandoned children with disabilities who show the potential for violence by not funding therapeutic foster homes.

Children with emotional illness and developmental delays come from families who have exhausted every resource to find services. These families live under the tyranny of a child who may have destroyed property, threatened them at knifepoint, or brutalized a younger sibling or pet.

Here is the dilemma: The police will not remove the child if they have not witnessed the threats or if they believe the child has a mental illness. The Department of Children & Families will not provide services if the child's IQ is above 70 or if he does not have a diagnosis of mental illness. If a child is mentally ill and violent, he may be eligible for placement in a residential "lock-down" facility, but only after being placed on a waiting list. DCF pays for therapeutic foster homes only for children who have come under their care through abuse, neglect or abandonment.

Therefore, the mother who is afraid to be alone with her teenage son has three choices: 1) wait for him to commit a violent crime so the juvenile justice system can fund services; 2) relinquish parental rights, thereby entitling the child to services through DCF (and exposing herself to charges of abandonment); or 3) continue to struggle with inadequate in-home services and pray that the inevitable does not occur.

Do not lose more of Florida's children by allowing them to fall between the cracks. Florida must fund therapeutic foster homes.